4. Arrests under a Warrant and other statutory arrest powers:
Where a person can be taken upon arrest

Requirement to take arrested person to a police
station

4.1. It is also proposed that Part 1 should be modified so as to
provide flexibility regarding where a person arrested on a warrant
should be taken upon arrest. Section 4 of the
CJ(S)A
requires that all arrested persons should be taken to a police
station as soon as reasonably practicable. This is not always
appropriate or necessary with some arrests on warrant.

Warrants for arrest of witnesses

4.2 Warrants can be issued for the arrest of witnesses who fail
to appear at court. The main reason for issuing the warrant is to
secure the witness's attendance at court in a timely fashion. A
requirement to take them to a police station, process them and then
take them to court may not be helpful in this situation. It may
however be necessary to take the person to a police station if they
are arrested after the court closes and they require to be held in
police custody until the court re-opens. In some cases the witness
may later be dealt with for contempt of court but this will only
happen after the witness attends court and if the Sheriff or Judge
decides on this course of action.

4.3 Under the current arrangements within the
CJ(S)A
witnesses arrested for failing to appear at court would have to go
through the custody process at the police station prior to being
taken to court. It would be useful to create flexibility within
section 4 to allow witnesses to be taken directly to court in
circumstances where the Sheriff or Judge directs this to
happen.

Other arrests

4.4 There are other arrest warrants and statutory powers of
arrest that require persons to be taken elsewhere other than a
police station or indeed a court. These include:

4.5 None of these provisions specifically require a person to be
taken to a police station before being taken to the place indicated
on the warrant or in legislation. In the majority of cases they
should be taken directly to the place indicated in the warrant or
legislation, such as a prison. In particular section 40(1) of the
Prisons (Scotland) Act 1989 specifically states that the person
arrested should be taken to the place in which he is required in
accordance with law to be detained. There may however be
circumstances for example where these other establishments are not
able to receive the arrested person. This would require the police
to take a person to a police station until that establishment opens
again.

4.6 For these types of arrests under warrant or particular
legislation there are no court proceedings resulting from the
arrest and the only purpose of the arrest is to take the arrested
person to a place directed on the warrant or under the legislation.
In these circumstances it could be considered to be an unnecessary
and bureaucratic process to take them to a police station. The
exception would be if the other place directed on the warrant or in
the legislation was not open to receive the arrested person, in
which case it would be appropriate for the person to taken into
police custody system until they could be transferred to the other
place. In these situations there is no requirement for them to be
in police custody any longer than is absolutely necessary, but they
should be given the same rights and entitlements as any other
person in police custody.

Proposed modification

4.7 The summary below sets out how the proposed regulations will
amend part 1 of the
CJ(S)A
for arrest under warrant / enactment specifying the place to which
the person should be taken with further explanation following.

4.8 A modification is proposed to disapply the requirement to
take all arrested individuals to a police station after arrest if
the warrant or enactment the person was arrested under requires
them to be taken to a particular place other than a police station
and if taking the person to that place would be unnecessarily
delayed by taking them to a police station first. This would
provide flexibility to take a person to the place where they are
meant to be, but would still allow a person to be taken to a police
station when that other place is not available.

4.9 This requires a related amendment to the meaning of police
custody in section 64 of the 2016 Act. This would clarify that the
person would cease to be in police custody when the police hand
them over to a court, hospital or prison in the situations
described above.

Question 4 Do you agree that section 4 of the Criminal
Justice (Scotland) Act 2016 should be modified to allow a person
to be taken directly to a place other than a police station if a
warrant or other enactment provides for this to happen?